Oscar Cahén

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Oscar Cahén Life & Work by Jaleen Grove By 1950 Cahén was sending Canadian illustration samples by his peers to the prestigious Graphis magazine in Zurich, thus forming a tangible link between the Canadian artists and Europe. His role as a trans-Atlantic intermediary, his proclivity for calling most slick advertising art “American junk,” and his belief in the power and social responsibility of commercial artists fit with the rhetoric of the postwar design reformers who wanted Canada to prosper along modernist, anti-American lines. He figured in design criticism as an example of Canadian sophistication that was consistent with the movement toward the professionalization of graphic design along international—meaning European, especially Scandinavian and Swiss—lines. As art director Stan Furnival (1913–1980) was to say in 1959, “With a sense of freedom and vitality, [Cahén’s illustrations] radically changed a tight slick Americanized attitude almost overnight. . . . Oscar realized that Canada was probably the only country left in the world where a fresh, alive influence would not only be accepted, but praised and honoured.” A less politically invested view today must concede that Cahén’s illustration was more culturally hybridized than his contemporaries cared to admit. Although his work initially appeared “typically European,” he had already absorbed American illustration in Prague and Germany, where Americana was in vogue, and it is more accurate to say that he combined European, American, and Canadian influences. Nevertheless, the design awards he won from juries of his peers were based firmly on his technical and creative prowess, not his ethnicity. Cahén certainly impressed everyone with virtuosity: junior artists delighted in timing how fast he could whip off a figure (about seven 19 minutes). Younger illustrators Gerry Sevier (b. 1934) and Tom McNeely (b. 1935) kept his work pinned up in their studio. A letter from art director Dick Hersey (dates unknown) once advised Harold Town (1924–1990), “[Your] drawing is too involved, also highly reminiscent of Oscar. I prefer to go to the source.” Since the first exhibition of Cahén’s illustration art in 2011, and with the circulation of the exhibition’s catalogue, a new following of contemporary illustrators and comics artists has begun to grow. 22 20 13 17 14 21 18 15 16 Oscar Cahén, Untitled (128), 1938, watercolour, gouache, and graphite on illustration board, 35.9 x 26 cm, The Cahén Archives, Toronto 50
Oscar Cahén Life & Work by Jaleen Grove Reception Among Painters Eleven and Others Oscar Cahén’s memory is inevitably linked to his participation in Painters Eleven, an artists’ group whose promotion of abstract painting and artistic freedom was described by critic Paul Duval in 1957 as having “performed a service for 23 Canadian art.” What Cahén brought to the group, member Jack Bush (1909–1977) stated, was “a wonderful sense of European colour and daring, but with it was also the wonderful tolerance and understanding.” Again owing to his background, Cahén held a powerful place in Painters Eleven, for he helped give the group a semblance of international flair that set them apart. When countering accusations that Painters Eleven was derivative of the New York School, for instance, member Ray Mead (1921– 1998) could conveniently point out that Cahén’s paintings looked “German.” Cahén once more acted as trans-Atlantic intermediary, helping member Jock Macdonald (1897–1960) scout opportunities for a Painters Eleven show in Europe by writing to venues in Germany. Cahén’s foreign identity gave the Painters Eleven group an air of authenticity, authority, and legitimacy that commanded respect in the face of the snide remarks their abstracts received in much of the press. Through Cahén, a European flavour was thought by one critic to have been passed on to Toronto painters at large. Many historians and critics have found that Cahén—nicknamed “Doc” by his friends for unknown reasons —commanded considerable influence in Painters Eleven and among other Toronto artists. Some have compared his role to that of the eminent Jock Macdonald; fellow member Tom Hodgson (1924–2006) even felt that “Cahén was by far the giant of the group,” although it had no leader per se. Upon hearing of Oscar Cahén’s death, the artist Toni Onley (1928–2004) wrote, “Some did not always agree on his departure in painting, but he taught us to re-examine ourselves—and thinking, find a mind’s-eye—and through this his boundless imagination and resourcefulness has rubbed off on us young painters.” 27 25 28 24 29 31 26 Jack Bush, The Old Tree, 1951, oil on hardboard, 43.2 x 55.9 cm, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, © Estate of Jack Bush / SODRAC (2015). Like Cahén, Jack Bush began his career as an illustrator and realist painter and made the transition to abstract painting in the early 1950s 30 51
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